Better Than Nothing
by Sage and Snape
Summary: Harm/Meg the real HM! Her eyes squeezed shut trying to block out the pain she’d thought she’d long since packed away. How could she really have packed it away when she still saw a shadow of him all the time and not just in her mind?


The Real HM, yes Harm/Meg

Disclaimer: Not mine! Well, Sean is, but the rest isn't

AN: Yes, she is speaking of two different people when she is talking about him and _him_. This is a one-shot (probably) that is a kinda companion to my other fic "Deadly Weapons and Slippery Spooks," in which Harm has a younger brother, Sean, and they look so much alike they could be twins, but they are behaviorally quite different. The premise of this is that Meg has been working with the brother for some time now. Part of this might make it into "Deadly Weapons and Slippery Spooks" as a chapter or part of a chapter. I just couldn't resist playing with this idea though!

Reminders

Hanging up the phone, she could do nothing but let her mouth hang just a bit open, the sudden rush of discomfort settling in between her stomach and heart completely stilling her thinking.

'Why' was the first thing that kept repeating once the cloak of shock left.

Why her? Why him? Why? Why? Why?

The assault on her memory was immediate. Flutters of peach lips slightly parted in disbelief, those blue-green eyes looking back at her, pleadingly so, promising her things without a spoken word. Promising her that _he_ would be okay, and that _he_ trusted her to help _him_. _He_ assured her with those eyes even though it was _him_ who was being carted away for a murder _he_ hadn't committed, facing a lifetime in jail. And _he_ was worried about her.

She _had_ helped _him_, just like _his_ eyes had known she would, and then she'd never seen or heard from _him_ again. She'd been forced to leave. She'd never gotten to see if _he_ was proud of her, gotten to cling onto _him_ after saving _him_ as _he_ had done to her after saving her.

Her eyes squeezed shut trying to block out the pain she'd thought she'd long since packed away. How could she really have packed it away when she still saw a shadow of _him_ all the time and not just in her mind? _He_ was nearly there, in real life, right in front of her so many times. The only subtle difference, their eyes, and his decidedly un-lawyerly build.

As her eyes burned, she let out a gasp-like sob remembering _his_ cocky smile, the way _he'd_ hold his finger up at her as if to say 'I know what trouble you're up to', _his_ hand grabbing hold of hers in the mud saving her from so much more than he could know, _his_ sidelong glances, the way that one piece of black hair always stuck a little out of place on the right.

All this brought on by a simple statement: "Rabb is being charged with murder."

It didn't matter that it wasn't the same Rabb.

Why? Why AGAIN?

Wasn't it enough to look at him without it being _him_? Wasn't it enough to work with him without it being _him_? Was it so much to ask that he not remind her in any more specific ways of _him_?!? Was it so much that she didn't want to be reminded of THAT? Was it so much to ask that it not all get taken away AGAIN!

How was it possibly fair to take away the only bit of _him_ that she'd been left with? It was decidedly not _him_, but it was better than nothing.

Better than nothing were his smiles that were decidedly not cocky but simply confident, his eyes that were protective not out of love but out of responsibility, his smell that wasn't sexual but simply familiar, his words that were not flirtatious but honest, his leadership that wasn't about the intangible but the tangible… But all that was better than nothing.

She'd been through this once before, Rabb, _her Rabb _being charged with murder. _Her Harm_. Then she'd been treated to a sick cosmic joke, and now that was changing into an even sicker cosmic joke. They'd both been taken away from her by being charged with murder.

And all she'd been told was: "Continue with what you have since his last communication, we'll keep you updated."

Not that "He needs you" or "We need you to help with the investigation or his defense".

Of course, what they were doing or the operation they were involved in was more important than any one man, but the intelligence they had was not the sort of intelligence that they could work off for long, so what difference would it make if she went to help him? Without him they had no information to work from! She hadn't spent all that time at JAG headquarters for nothing and she was already in Naples! She was not, could not go through this again. Not because she couldn't deal without him, but because it reminded her of dealing without _him_. It made it doubly heartbreaking inside.

There simply wasn't a place for Lieutenant Meg Austin in the Navy without a Lieutenant Commander Rabb.

Hours later her phone rang again, the number on the ID making her snap it open so hard she almost broke it. She couldn't speak into it, but didn't have to.

"I'm out."

And she let out the breath she hadn't realized that she'd been holding, so much so it made her lips tingle. She nodded, but he couldn't see. She'd been afraid she was never going to hear that voice again. Even if it wasn't _him_.

"You there, Texas?" he asked in that deep, familiar baritone, with that slight hint of ease and humor that he sometimes had, but only sometimes. That slight thing that she clung to, that reminded her so very much of _him_.

"I'm here, sir…"

The subsequent conversation hadn't mattered, the updates, the itinerary, what he needed from her. Needed. How that word coming from his voice had made her heart nearly stop. They sounded so alike.

And when the door opened and she saw him, it was like the moment she'd always been waiting for with _him _but had never gotten to have: waiting to welcome back her partner who had been, in her mind, way more than her professional partner. That tall stature, the perfect silhouette framed against the light of outside in the doorway, that black hair begging for her hands, those lips…Just like it really was _him _and not him, no thoughts of the fact that he was her senior officer, she closed the distance between them and threw her arms around his middle. They'd always gotten on well, been congenial, friends even, but not like with _him_, but it was better than nothing.

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again, sir…"

For a brief second, his body stiffened against her before it relaxed, one arm tentatively going around her. Her relationship with him had never been what it was with _him_.

He didn't respond, his breathing just hitched, and she looked up at him. Looked up into that face that reminded her so much of---.

Her eyes latched onto not his hazel eyes, those soft puppy like amber eyes that hid his deadly instincts well, but _his _blue-green eyes, those eyes she so many times thought she'd seen playful humor, devoted love, and definite admiration in.

She swallowed dryly, feeling that familiar burn coming over her eyes.

"Harm?"

He tried to suck in a breath to form words and when he said, "Meg?" it came out all shaky.

Everything seemed to slow down and speed up all at once as she blinked and stared at him, not wanting to take her eyes off him and find out that she had been mistaken and that this was in fact Sean Rabb and not Harmon Rabb, Jr., her Harmon Rabb, Jr.

"Harm," she said again, reaching up to touch his face as if to make sure he was definitely real, drawing out the syllables of his name, nearly choking.

Finally his instincts seemed to jump in and his arms closed around her tightly, fiercely as he placed his cheek against her forehead, at a loss for words.

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," she repeated, sobbing this time, saying it to Harm as she always wanted to say it.

All the pain she'd felt for the last 24 hours was transforming. The cosmic joke she'd thought she'd been apart of was no longer a joke, but a divine plan come full circle.

When LCDR Sean Rabb walked into the room two minutes behind his brother, he stopped motionless in the doorway at the sight of Lt. Austin clutching his brother and his brother clutching her as if he'd just been the one busted out of the brig on a murder charge. Then he heard her call him 'Harm'. She definitely wasn't mistaking them.

Suddenly he understood all her surreptitious and longing glances, the occasional disappointment in her eyes or voice, the familiar comfort she'd working with him, the trust she'd placed in him so easily. None of it had been because of him. She had been in love with his brother…apparently still was…and his brother was obviously in love with her.

Read? REVIEW!

Thanks


End file.
